This particular bass looks to be in excellent condition and I love the look of the top wood. Personally, I find the Essence body shape quite attractive; they are also relatively small and light weight. I also like the look of a clean neck, i.e. no inlays, the downside to which is if you have vision problems like I do, it can be hard to see the side markers. However, this bass has side LED's, so that shouldn't be an issue. This is a neck-through Alembic with the basic Alembic filter electronics. The standard neck for the Essence is the comfort taper as opposed to the classic taper. The Europa has the comfort taper and the Signature has the classic taper. The comfort is narrower at the nut and wider at the bridge. The controls are volume, pan, filter. This is a simple straigtforward setup, and many Essence owners are happy with it. Alembic sells a Q switch kit with instructions that you can order and install yourself (or have your local luthier install if your queezy about drilling a hole in a $4,400 instrument or your unsure of your soldering skills). Adding the Q switch will give you more tonal options. Obviously the Essence electronics don't have the options of the more complex setups like Europa and Signature electronics. Also, the Essence has only one preamp, thus there is only one trim pot inside the control cavity for adjusting output gain. (Having two trim pots allows you to adjust the outputs of the two pickups relative to each other; but for most folks this is not a big issue). The neck is Maple (with Walnut pinstripes), the basic Alembic neck-through. It doesn't have Purpleheart or Ebony lams if that's important to you. I own an all Maple Essence 4 string with Maple top, body and neck. Unfortunately, it's been away for the past 21 months and I can't remember exactly what it sounds like (although it's supposed to be coming back real soon!). I do remember that I loved it, but that I wanted a more flexible control layout (which is part of the reason it's been away for a while). Since you previously owned a Series bass you should know that Series electonics are a bit different than the other Alembic electronics packages; so it's not going to sound like a Series bass. But it is going to sound like an Alembic.
